Great Plains Nature Center to host Fly-Fishing Film Festival

Now here’s an underserved film festival demographic: fishermen. Well, no more!

The Great Plains Nature Center, in conjunction with Flatland Fly-Fishers, is hosting the Fly-Fishing Film Festival, a series of nine professionally produced short films about – you guessed it – fly fishing. The event will be from 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday at Great Plains Nature Center, 6232 E. 29th St. North, in its lecture hall.

Tickets are $10 for the entire program and can be purchased in advance at Backwoods in Bradley Fair, 1900 N. Rock Road, Suite 108, or Ark River Anglers, 1617 S. Longfellow Circle.

The program is actually a touring film festival that has been touring annually since 2007. It attracted nearly 50,000 anglers across North America last season, according to its website.

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A portion of total ticket sales goes toward supporting fishing and habitat-related conservation groups. In 2013, the festival raised $250,000, according to its website.

Each 15-minute (or so) film in the program showcases anglers casting for brook trout, salmon, shark, trigger fish and other species in locations around the world, from the Rocky Mountains to Alaska, Iceland and Norway.

Special events — There are two special film screenings in the area this week:

• “Wichita” – This locally made film written and directed by Nicholas Barton is set in 1882, as a fugitive heads into Wichita while a bounty hunter tracks him down.

The film premiered in Wichita earlier this month and is now on a multi-city tour. It will be shown at 2 p.m. Sunday at Augusta Historic Theatre, 523 State St. in Augusta. Tickets are $10. Barton and other cast and crew members will attend the screening for a meet-and-greet session after the film.

“Wichita” contains mature subject matter and is not suitable for all audiences. It contains adult content, mild language, violence, and a scene of brief nudity.

High Road Entertainment is hosting a free screening of this documentary (opening nationwide on June 6) about journalist Mike Boettcher and his son Carlos, who bravely follow an elite group of U.S. troops on a dangerous mission deep inside one of Afghanistan’s most hostile valleys.

The film follows what was supposed to be a single-day strike that turned into nine days of harrowing combat.

Mike Boettcher will attend the screening and participate in a Q&A session after the film. It screens at 7 p.m. Monday at Warren Theatres East.

The list is heavily anticipated each year, as film festival submission fees can stack up quickly for an independent filmmaker trying to navigate the festival circuit (feature submission fees average about $50 a pop, sometimes more). So the list is helpful, and being on it is an achievement.

This year, Wichita’s own Tallgrass Film Festival has made the list, in company with such high-profile festivals as the Austin Film Festival, Brooklyn International Film Festival and Seattle International Film Festival. To see the entire list, go to www.moviemaker.com.

This year’s Tallgrass festival, the 12th annual, will take place Oct. 15-19.